ALASTAIR BLAND/CalMatters

CalMatters
Even in wet years, wells are still dry. Why replenishing California’s groundwater is painfully slow
After abundant rain and moderate snowfall this year in the northern half of the state, California’s largest reservoirs are holding more than 120% of their historical average.
 
California has a plan for new water rules. Will it save salmon from extinction?
The Newsom administration is refining a contentious set of proposed rules, years in the making, that would reshape how farms and cities draw water from the Central Valley’s Delta and its rivers.
 
How did mussels sneak into California, despite decades of state shipping rules?
A state law enacted 20 years ago has required California officials to inspect 25% of incoming ships and sample their ballast water before it’s discharged into waterways. But the tests didn’t begin until two years ago — after standards for conducting them were finally set — and testing remains rare.
 
‘Immediate threat’: Mussel invades California’s Delta, first time in North America
On Oct. 17, the tiny freshwater mollusks, which have already laid siege to waterways of southern South America, were found at Rough and Ready Island, near Stockton. Since then, state officials said, it has been in at least one other location, O’Neill Forebay, in Merced County.
 
Is a new plan for delivering Delta water worse than Trump’s rules? Environmentalists say yes.
But the new proposal from the Biden and Newsom administrations — developed mostly by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources — does not fix what environmentalists considered deal-breaking flaws in the Trump rules. Rather, they say, it worsens them, and could lead